Plaid to the Bone by Mia Marlowe Page B

the room, welcoming the cold that shot through her bare feet and up her shins. Cold was better than warmth. It helped her see things clear again.
    She had a charge to keep. It didn’t matter that her betrothed was a man who could charm her into bed and take her body to a place of unspeakable delight. He was Wallace Grant’s enemy and, therefore, hers as well. Her father’s fortune—the fate of Scotland’s young king, come to that—depended upon her keeping her word.
    Not to mention my father’s head.
    It had all seemed just words at the time, eerie, mystical words of some dark incantation. Morgan MacRath had been in his glory as he conducted the weird ritual in the Grant crypt. It was a sealing, he’d said. A bargain with the powers to see their goal to an end. The light of triumph in his eyes when she swore reminded her of the soulless glow of a predatory animal’s eyes peering from the forest at midnight.
    If she failed, would it mean her father’s head was truly forfeit?
    She stopped in the shaft of moonlight and looked up at the cold ball in the black sky. She needed to be like the moon. No warmth. No constancy.
    She had no choice. She had to succeed. She’d sworn. On her own blood and the head of her father.
    Cait set her face like flint and resolved to spend the rest of the night plotting her bridegroom’s demise.

Chapter 7

    “In all my studies of the arcane, I’ve come to believe the lore of the herbalist speaks most clearly to the human condition. As with the heart of man, there is a duality in nearly every beneficial plant, a light and dark side, as it were. For in every cure that restores health, there is a bit of poison.”

    From the journal of Callum Farquhar,
cynic, suspicious of alchemy, but possessed of
just enough garden knowledge to get myself
into trouble.

    Cait rose early. It was easy since she’d hardly been to bed. She bypassed the main hall, where most of the castle’s residents were breaking their fast and made her way to the walled garden off the kitchen.
    Cook didn’t question her interest in the small plot. As chatelaine, Cait would be expected to doctor the ills and hurts of the castle folk. She was required to have a working knowledge of healing herbs and such. Nothing was more natural than the new lady of Bonniebroch apprising herself of the plants available to her.
    There were neat rows of rosemary, thyme, and fragrant lavender. Basil and chamomile, licorice root and mint grew in profusion in the sheltered garden. Everything was disquietingly wholesome. She’d almost given up hope of finding something she could use until she spied the purplish-blue flowers in a shaded corner.
    Wolf’s bane.
    Cait knelt and pulled the small knife from the busk of her bodice to cut a few stems.
    “Careful, milady,” came a voice from behind her.
    Cait rose quickly—guiltily, she feared—and discovered the small man she’d saved from the pillory behind her. He stood in the doorway to the garden, fingering his damaged ear. “Oh, it’s ye, Mr. Farquhar. Ye gave me a start.”
    “Ye remembered my name. Aren’t ye kind?” A smile broke over his thin face; then his gaze darted back to the plants in the corner. “Ye’ll want to be wearing gloves before ye cut wolf’s bane.”
    “’Tis only poison if it’s consumed.”
    He arched a wiry brow. “Aye, that’s true. But if ye’ve so much as a small cut on your hands, ye might take in enough of the malevolent properties of the plant through your skin to poison yerself by accident.”
    Her father had neglected to warn her of that.
    “If ye dinna mind me asking, what might ye be needing it for?” he said with a small dip of his head.
    She was grateful she had a story ready, but the lie still came haltingly to her lips. “My maid Grizel. She suffers at times . . . from the rheumatism, ye see. I’ve heard a poultice made with wolf ’s bane applied at the point of pain can be a great help.”
    A small amount taken in a hot drink could